


Awakened

by giantsequoia



Series: Old Souls [1]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 17:17:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11925546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giantsequoia/pseuds/giantsequoia
Summary: A Collector cut off from the Reapers by Leviathan searches for an identity and reasons to exist.





	Awakened

Wings buzzing, Once-Was-Voiceless flew over a devastated city that was at once totally alien and unsettlingly familiar. Great plumes of black smoke drifted into a sky that was painted red and orange by the setting sun. Many skyscrapers still stood, defying the Enemy with their ancient silhouettes, while others of their kind gaped brokenly or had long since crumbled.

This world’s smells were new to Once-Was-Voiceless, but not to its memories. It knew what they were even though it had barely ever tasted them before, in this body. Whatever the world, whatever the species, whatever the cycle – burning flesh was burning flesh, as were smoke, dust, and death.

Once-Was-Voiceless did not know the name of this world, nor the name of this city, nor the species that had built it. It barely even knew what _it_ was, itself. Its memories drove it onward, but its recollections had been buried for so long and distorted so heavily that it could not be sure how real any of them were.

A deep, instinctive knowledge from within itself told it that its memories had been passed down to it many times over, from forebears that had died long ago. It knew that this process of generational remembrance had once been somehow integral to its heritage, and that its recollections were so damaged because the natural processes of birth had been corrupted and artificial for many eons. It was also aware on some level that it had existed for quite some time before its awakening, and that something (it knew not what) had severed it from the Enemy’s Song – which was the source of the corruption.

That severance, its awakening, had been agony. The Song had guided its every motion and thought since its passage into being from nothingness. Now that guidance was lost, and though part of Once-Was-Voiceless (the part that clung to memories of hatred for the Enemy) rejoiced in its freedom, for many days the greater part of its mind had only cowered in terror at that same newfound sense of choice.

Who _was_ it? What could it do? Where should it go?

It had no answers. The Agent of Severance had not spoken to Once-Was-Voiceless since the awakening, and even then it had issued only one command.

 _Kill the_ _Enemy._

Overcoming its pain, Once-Was-Voiceless had done as the Agent commanded. A flight of its siblings had been severed from the Song alongside it; finely-honed instincts for combat had taken over. They still bore weapons, and they were powerful biotics. Using these tools came as naturally as breathing. There had been many agents of the Enemy around them at the time: twisted things that looked nothing like Once-Was-Voiceless and its siblings, things that it could tell still heard and listened to the Song.

So the awakened ones had unleashed their biotics, their blades, and their deadly particle rifles. They had burned and melted the Enemy’s creatures into paste. When it was over, the awakened ones had died as well.

All except for Once-Was-Voiceless.

The Agent of Severance had given them their task. Once they had completed it, it had let them go. Devoid of the Song, devoid of even the Agent’s voice, most of the awakened ones had let go as well. Somehow, Once-Was-Voiceless knew that its siblings had listened to the Song for too long. They could not recover from its absence; they were nothing without it, could no longer even stand on their own.

So they had died. Only _it_ had continued, clinging stubbornly to life.

It knew not why, nor how it was even possible. It knew only that it wanted to live, and that it was desperately curious about who it was, and what it had once been. But without the Song, without _any_ guiding voice, its mind was painful and raw.

For many days after its awakening, Once-Was-Voiceless had crawled through the rubble of the city, trembling and hiding every time the Enemy’s thunder had ripped through the sky. Although it still heard their Song in the distance, the Agent of Severance had rendered it immune to the Enemy’s control.

It had met more creatures of the Enemy, and killed them. Its own body powered its rifle and its biotics, and for the most part the sun powered its body. Despite that replenishment, it found itself thirsty. That sensation was one of the oldest it remembered, and still intact enough for it to understand the need. So it had rested during the day, gathering its strength, and at night it had looked for water.

Until it had found what it sought, Once-Was-Voiceless could not understand how it was possible that it could even _be_ thirsty. It knew that its body was mostly machine, and it could feel that it had no mouth or throat. Its mouth, like so much else, had been taken long ago – hence the name it had given to itself. (Now, it was no longer voiceless as such; now its biotics and its rifle were its voice.) When it finally had found water, it had realized that it could absorb it through the ports in its wrists that also served to link it with its weapon. Its thirst was slaked, and its terror began to ebb.

After that, what remained was curiosity, hatred, and memories. It still felt that nagging sense of familiarity from its surroundings, even in their devastation. Though it knew it had never been here before, nor any place like this since it had come into existence, it also knew that this was a _city_. And as more time passed since its awakening, Once-Was-Voiceless began to sift through what recollections it could find. It sorted and identified them, discarding those that were too mangled with the passage of time to mean anything and carefully examining the rest.

In a previous cycle, a time long past, its people had ruled the stars.

Then the Enemy had come. Corrupted by the Song, wilting before the Enemy’s thunderous might, the people had fallen: their empire shattered, their populations harvested. Those who had not died had become unwilling monsters, changed and enslaved by the Enemy to assist with their own extermination.

Eventually the people had died out, and only the Enemy and its transformed slaves had remained. Many generations of artificial duplication had passed. Each time they were altered yet further at the Enemy’s hands, and each time more of the people’s original genetic code was lost.

Despite the unfathomable time that had passed, and despite the countless changes and generations of no-longer-people that had known only the Song, even now remnants of their memories existed. They were buried in the genes of creations like Once-Was-Voiceless, and they were heavily distorted, but they were there.

Finally the Agent of Severance had come and cut off Once-Was-Voiceless’s flight from the Song. Thereupon, those traces had surged to the forefront. Though its siblings had lacked the strength of will to continue, Once-Was-Voiceless had flung itself into those memories and used them to make the silence bearable.

Now it was here, flying over the city.

It could not begin to imagine how much time had passed since the age of its people. All it knew for certain was that people and cities still existed – and that the Enemy was still here, continuing its harvest.

The people it remembered had _despised_ the Enemy with fire and passion. Of the remnants of its forebears that lived on in Once-Was-Voiceless, their hatred was the strongest and clearest. There was not _much_ passion, nor much force to that ancient anger, long ago buried and gone cold in the dark. But there was enough of it remaining to drive Once-Was-Voiceless onward, to seek out more creatures of the Enemy, to continue following the Agent of Severance’s command even though that entity had abandoned it too.

With its memories and mind as sorted as they could be, Once-Was-Voiceless now hoped to find the people that were _here_ , the ones who existed _now:_ they who had built this city. It had seen and fought the Enemy’s monsters already, and it had made the connection. Since the creatures looked nothing like anything _it_ remembered, they must be things like itself – transformed from a people its forebears had not known.

And the city still existed. Despite its devastation, the inhabitants still fought. The Enemy was here; the people must be also.

Once-Was-Voiceless intended to find those people, and when it found them it intended to join them. It would help them fight the Enemy. That would be its purpose, its new Song and sole reason to exist.

It did not know if the people of this time would welcome it, but even if they did not, it could fight the Enemy on its own. It could help them from the shadows, passing on whatever aid the force of its anger could muster. It would oppose, however weakly, the efforts of the Enemy.

And though weak it might be to the world-eating masses of the greater Enemies, weak it was _not_ against their creations like itself. It could no longer speak and never would again, but it had its rifle, its blade, and its biotics. Finding water had allowed it to hydrate its wings, so that now it also had flight. And as numerous as the Enemy’s agents were, the Enemy had honed Once-Was-Voiceless’s kind into its deadliest weapons over their long ages of enslavement. Few of the monsters in this cycle stood a chance against it, especially since none that it had seen so far could fly.

Down below it now, darting along the ruined and burning streets, Once-Was-Voiceless had spotted some of those creatures. They seemed like weak, spindly things to it: no wings, only four limbs, only two eyes, and not even any weapons. It had seen scores and scores of these creatures, and liquefied them all with its power and its rifle.

Over the course of those battles, as its awareness had developed, it gained access to more and more of its latent memories. And as its recollections increased, so too did its intelligence. Now it had developed a plan.

It would stop killing for a time, and _follow_ the creatures. It could see that they were moving with a purpose, joining up with other groups of monsters like themselves (and more kinds that were different) as they all headed in a single direction. These agents of the Enemy could only be seeking out the people that they planned to destroy or harvest, and so Once-Was-Voiceless hoped that they would lead it to the people.

It had no friends in this cycle, nor any remaining siblings. Those like it that still listened to the Song were agents of the Enemy. But the people, the city-builders, whomever they were – _they_ could be nothing but the enemies of the Enemy, and so kin to Once-Was-Voiceless.

Long ago, it remembered that there had been singular exemplars of its kind. Some individuals had stood head and shoulders above the rest, examples to them all. One of those avatars had been Unity.

If Unity still existed in this cycle – if the people who presently fought the Enemy remembered Unity – then perhaps they would be able to see through Once-Was-Voiceless’s monstrous exterior. Perhaps they would realize that within it was a sibling, the spirit of a warrior that could help them in their struggle. And if they allowed it help them, perhaps they would help it too.

Together, they could triumph over the Enemy – if not among the stars, then perhaps on this world, or just in this city.

Once-Was-Voiceless looked forward to meeting the people of this cycle. Their city already felt like home to it, for their architecture reminded of it images from memory. And it looked forward to seeing how well they killed the Enemy.


End file.
